|
Forest Oil plans more inlet exploration, seismic shoot on Copper River acreage Company to drill from onshore or existing platform next year, bring floating exploration vessel to inlet in 2003; has applied for Susitna licenses Kristen Nelson PNA Editor-in-Chief
Forest Oil Corp., working now to bring the Redoubt Shoal field in northern Cook Inlet online by the end of 2002, is also working on a number of exploration prospects in the inlet and elsewhere in the state.
Gary Carlson, senior vice president, Alaska business unit, told PNA Oct. 1 that one of the company’s Cook Inlet prospects, Sabre, is due west of the Dolly Varden platform, between the platform and shore. That prospect could be drilled either from shore or from the platform, he said. Forest owns 70 percent of Sabre and is in negotiations with Unocal to see if agreement can be reached to drill the prospect from the platform in 2002.
“In order for us to drill off of one of the Trading Bay unit platforms,” Carlson said, “we have to have additional agreements with Unocal to share facilities.”
“It’s a little structure that could be the size of West McArthur River, that general range,” Carlson said. West McArthur River is the Forest-operated field being produced from onshore at a West Forelands drill site. Production reports from the state show the field has produced some 7.5 million barrels of oil and is currently producing some 3,400 bpd.
Sabre had been identified by both Unocal and Marathon Oil Co., and was given different names by each company. Forest renamed the prospect, Carlson said, after an airplane, like the company’s other Cook Inlet prospects, Corsair, Valkyrie and Tom Cat, a prospect Forest has already drilled onshore. Other evaluations in 2003 The Corsair and the Valkyrie and other prospects will be evaluated in the summer of 2003, using a floating exploratory vessel, probably a jack up rig, Carlson said.
Valkyrie is off the northern end of the Redoubt Shoal unit and Corsair is in mid-inlet across from Tyonek.
Carlson said that Forest is talking with Prodigy Alaska LLC about sharing the costs of mobilization and demobilization to bring a drilling vessel to Alaska. The Prodigy leases are not far from the Forest Corsair prospect, Carlson said. Forest is working with the other operators on this because the mobilization-demobilization costs are such a big part of the cost of drilling wells, he said.
Forest also has a 25 percent interest in the Phillips Alaska Inc.-operated Cosmopolitan prospect offshore the southern Kenai Peninsula. That prospect will be drilled from shore. Copper River, Susitna exploration Forest has applied for exploration licenses in the Susitna area. Carlson said negotiations are continuing with the state on those licenses and he expects to see them awarded before the end of the year. The work programs for those licenses are still under discussion.
Forest is a 50-50 partner with Anschutz and the operator for an exploration license in the Copper River area, and Carlson said some gravity and magnetic surveys have been done on that license. Forest is also doing some on-the-ground geologic work and is purchasing some seismic. “Our next step may be to get our own seismic up there,” he said.
“And the goal is to come up with a prospect or two to drill.”
Carlson said Forest will follow the same pattern in the Susitna area, once those licenses have been issued. Gas prone areas Carlson said both the Copper River and Susitna are probably gas prone.
“We see … the market opening up for gas,” he said.
“If the pipeline, the gas pipeline, does come to Fairbanks and you do have a big find in the Susitna, or even Copper River, your only market isn’t the Anchorage Bowl.
“So we think that exploring for gas now with the idea that you could commercialize it in five years or in that time frame, or part of it in five years, part of it sooner, maybe, is still good business.
From Susitna you could come south and link up with the Enstar system.
“But if you find something big enough… a pipeline up the highway to Fairbanks is a possibility,” Carlson said.
Forest is also interested in gas-to-liquids technology, has stock in a company that has that technology and has “pushed it as a possibility for both North Slope and the Cook Inlet,” he said.
And Forest has also farmed into a 20 percent interest in the Slugger unit on the North Slope.
“We’re talking to North Slope producers about a possibility of coming in as a minority owner on other prospects up there. But other than our small ownership in Point Thomson unit and Prudhoe, this will be our first drilling up there since Forest drilled up there in the ‘70s,” Carlson said.
| 